He didn't move
by kreton1
Summary: This is just a little Story set in the Frostpunk universe, in New London to be precise. The rights to Frostpunk of course don't belong to me.


p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"„Captain? Are you alright?" asked Mary as she entered the Captains private quarters, a tray with a bowl of soup in her hands. The Captain sat at his desk, like he did so often since they arrived here. He was not much like one of the leaders and politicians she remembered from back home in London, before the cold. You could rarely ever see him at social events of any kind, he preferred to stay mostly for himself, reading a book when he wasn't working. This time though, it was different, it was completely quiet, no rustling of paper or the scratching of his pen while he worked on a new law. He simply sat at his desk, a report of some kind in front of him, completely halted in motion./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"He didn't answer./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"Carefully, Mary placed the tray on the desk where the Captain used to eat, sometimes asking her to stay for some company. With a sinking feeling, she stepped towards his desk. Looking closer at him, he didn't really look as if he where working. He looked much more like old Gary, whom they had found on the morning 3 days before they reached the generator, frozen to death with a book in his hands, his thick fur coat wrapped around a sleeping child. Could it be that the Captain had simply died over night while working on the new healthcare law he had been talking about the evening before? Did he die from the cold or exhaustion while trying to keep them all well fed and healthy? Hoping that she was wrong and he was just lost in thought, she grabbed his shoulder and shook him gently. "Captain, please, can you hear me?" she asked with a quiet terror in her voice./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"He didn't move./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"Marys hand reached for the amulet around her neck. "God almighty, in all your mercy, please, the Captain has to be alive." whispered the young woman. "He is everything we have." She looked out of the window where the child shelter and the generator stood in front of the rising sun which brought, while the thermometer was at -56°C. The worst seemed to be over after -60 to -65°C for three days straight in their town of 550 souls. What would happen now? The news of his death would break the hope that the Captain had rebuild against all odds after discovering what happened to Winterhome. Would a new Captain manage to carry on his legacy or would New London descend into chaos? Even with these thoughts she was curious, what had it been the captain had worked on with his last breath? If it had been a law, they had to publish and put it to use after all. She took a closer look at the report. It was not about a law as she had thought initially but information sent to him from the beacon and seemed to be mostly meteorological data and some regarding their ressources, especially coal. When she understood, it felt like the blood froze in her veins and she almost knocked over the Captain in shock./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"He didn't move./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"-120°C. She had known that a storm would come, the waves of refugees had told them so, but that bad? Mary could hardly believe it but the data seemed to be solid as far as she could say but what was even more worrying was the estimations that came with it. It would last several days. How should they gather food and coal or go out at all? How would they not freeze to death in their beds at night, even with a Generator and heating system as well developed as theirs? Could the stockpiled resources last for several days? The Captain would have known, he would have brought them to this worst of all situations without crossing lines to far./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"Despairing, she remembered how to captain had greeted her himself when she had arrived in the city, only a week after the generators activation and bate farwell to this quiet, humble man that given everything to New London. When she left the room, she heared the faint rusteling of paper behind her./p  
p class="yklcuq-10 hpxQMr"He moved./p 


End file.
